Well, they are only comparing six countries. Not much of a sample.

And I'd be curious to see whether that covers only houses, or whether it covers apartments as well.

I also note the prominence on the demographia website given to the book "War on the Dream", by Wendell Cox, who periodically comes out here to proclaim 'get rid of public transport, more freeways are the way to go!'. His answer is sprawl the suburbs out 100km or more.

Sounds like a bit of a vested interest lobby group (property developers?) drumming up a news story to me - especially with the words "housing affordability crisis" thrown in.

Is there really a crisis? Sure, houses in areas in high demand in Sydney are expensive. Conversely, houses in areas of low demand are pretty cheap. Is this something the government really needs to get involved in? What are they going to do? ;)

Well, as long as the good jobs are in the urban areas, the housing prices will always be higher in urban areas. We all know that. But compared to similar cities I've personally travelled to, Sydney housing prices seem inflated.

I've always felt that people could be encouraged to move further out from the city centre if there were better infrastructure like buses, trains and roads. (I guess I disagree with that author on the train issue, eh?) So yes, the government could do a thing or two

I'm sure much of what is printed about real estate market is written by people who have a vested interest. For sure. But the stats are still interesting to consider.

Hey, did you end up buying that place up north? Which side of the fence are you on now? ;)

Interestingly, a lot of people out west are now working in Parramatta. A lot of government offices have moved out that way, out of the CBD. I couldn't imagine driving/commuting more than an hour anyway!